Wasted Metaphor Arc
by That's LEON
Summary: Cleon. Revamp of the original, now in one convenient location! PART VII: “Even in his stony gaze and the stoic line of his lips, there was something incredibly human.”
1. Burned Out

**Wasted Metaphor Arc  
**_Toothpaste Addict_

**I. Burned Out**

Darkness has claimed the room over the past few hours. It started out as a low dimming in the shady corners, light slowly retreating through the locked windows until he'd been left in utter darkness—not that his physical surroundings have any influence on the storm brewing in his skull.

Squall. Turmoil. A storm. Him.

How appropriate.

The thoughts stumble vaguely through his head, not quite coherent but entirely vivid, before his mind numbs as he forcibly shuts it down and it complies, however slowly. He forces it into absence—forces himself not to think, lest his mind wanders too far, to things he's too tired to confront. His eyes are closed, barring him against the darkness of his room, but the darkness inside can't be shut out. He knows. He's tried.

He's tried and he's failed, time and time again.

It's an entirely separate entity from the blackness of night that settles around him, the mere absence of light. This darkness is heavier, asphyxiating, so much more imposing. Confining and unforgiving, unlike a natural darkness, which liberates the senses.

He turns on his side, a feeble seeking of refuge from the plaguing nightmares. He swerves dangerously in and out of consciousness, unable to find comfort in either. He wants to escape the constant guilt that burdens every waking moment, the self-loathing that intensifies with every breath he takes, the knowledge that it is only for his cowardice that he is still here today. The knowledge that it is for that same cowardice that _he_ is not.

He wants to escape his conscience, but sleep is no place to escape to. In sleep there is nothing but swarms of heartless and the deafening roar of blood in his ears as the fallen are trampled and Radiant Garden goes down in flames. Nothing but the broken look in _his_ turquoise eyes as he turns and flees, overtaken by fear for his life. The cold glass pressed against his palms as he stares out of the airship, lips parted in a soundless scream as his eyes frantically search the city below. His voice, strained beyond coherence, yelling desperately that they can't leave _him_ behind.

There's nothing he can do in sleep but watch himself, time and time again, forsake his friend for something as worthless as his own life. There's no way to rationalize, no way he can tell himself it had to be done. _He_ had trusted Squall with everything he was, and Squall had betrayed him.

That's all there is to it.

Sleep isn't an option. But when he's awake, there's nothing he can do but sink deeper and deeper into the abyss that threatens to swallow him whole. He can't bring _him_ back, can't apologize, can't atone for his sins that day. He can't even cry for the boy he left to die; he has no tears left to offer him. He can't defend himself against the shame because he knows that his actions that day were a manifestation of everything he had always feared: that he was too weak to protect the people he loved. That he was too coward to fight for them. That he was bound to and would fail them.

Everything reminds him of that coward within him—the coward that let _him_ die. And how can it not? How can he forget, when every breath he takes is a reminder of why he survived when _he_ had not?

He can't even take his own life. It's not like he hasn't thought about it, but the cowardice he tries so_, so_ hard to escape keeps him from his only way out. He's afraid—so terribly afraid—that he'd rather retreat to the living hell of his mind than confront death. But he's brought it upon himself, he tells himself, and he deserves it. He deserves the hell he's constructed for himself, a delectably ironic punishment for his sins. That is the price he pays, in every beat of his heart, for sacrificing _him_ in the name of cowardice. The price he pays for being alive—for being Squall Leonhart.

He fights to stay awake, but sleep is wrapping itself around him with seductive, whispered lies of a dreamless night. He lets it claim him, too exhausted to resist, too worn out to protest those lies. It's been a full year now, but the nightmares have come faithfully every night, and tonight… tonight is no exception.

He tosses and turns as the nightmares take hold, tangling himself unwittingly in his sheets as he breaks out in a cold sweat, his body pale and taut with distress. His face is fixed into an expression of terror as dark fire whips behind his closed eyelids and year-old screams echo in his skull. He unconsciously cradles his head in his hands in an attempt to shut out the memories, but what good can it do? They're coming from inside of him, and he can't escape himself. He tries to tell himself its only a dream, tries to force himself awake, but succeeds only in trapping himself in limbo between his nightmares and his dark bedroom.

The heartless in his mind reach for him, and his fingers clench around the hilt of a gunblade that isn't there, instead closing around his own hair forcefully. He edges back, feeling _his_ presence behind him, but _he_ isn't here in the room. In a flurry of black claws, a heartless strikes him across the face, splitting a gash between his eyes, and that… that's really there. When he wakes up, he'll see that cut across his face—the scar that gets redrawn every night.

He cuts down the heartless that injured him, haphazardly wiping blood away from his eyes with the back of his hand as he fights back to back with the younger boy behind him. The boy is brandishing a broadsword, far too large for him, cutting through a horde of black shadows. He yells something through gritted teeth, but his voice is lost over the din of battle; they're becoming outnumbered with each passing second.

The boy cries out as another heartless attacks his leg; Squall hears the distinct sound of bone snapping and cringes, curling against his cold pillow. The boy drops his sword, stumbling as his ankle gives out beneath him, and Leon spins around, voice frantic. _Get back up!_

He reaches for a potion; time stops as he realizes there are none left. Blood halts in his veins, fetid air turns to ice around them, and his skin crawls despite the heat of the omnipresent flames. A single thought flashes through his mind:

_It's over._

He writhes, the sheets around him damp with sweat as he pants for air, his chest rising and falling erratically. His hands clench into fists so tightly that his knuckles turn white, and in his dream, he catches sight of a gummi ship in the distance. In the bed, he tenses further, knowing what comes next. Next, he relives the moment he failed the boy he'd vowed to defend.

The airship hovers low to the ground, blaring sirens scaring off some of the heartless. An amplified voice is projected over the nauseating battle cries of the shadow creatures. _Come with me if you want to live_.

He turns back to the younger boy, hauling him up and supporting his weight against him, and starts for the ship, Revolver slashing at the heartless around them. They're going to survive; they're going to make it to that airship, together.

But he already knows that's a lie.

They're only a few feet from where they started. The ship has picked up a young girl and is preparing to leave without them. He yells hoarsely for them to wait, but he's drowned out by the heartless. Overwhelmed by desperation, he thrusts his friend aside. As he turns to flee, their eyes meet for a brief moment. Turquoise upon blue-gray, the younger boy's eyes wide with pain and fear.

_Wait_—_! Squall!_

Squall. That name echoes through him as he tears off in the direction of the airship as fast as he can, dodging heartless and cutting through them. _Squall._

As he leaves him behind, seeking safety. _Squall. _

As he scrambles up the rope ladder, bruised and battered, blood obscuring his vision into a blurred, butchered mess, heartless crawling up behind him. _Squall._

As he gasps for air, lying on the deck of the ship and trying to acknowledge what's just happened. _Squall. _

As someone on board cuts the rope ladder, the heartless shrieking in surprise and plummeting downwards. _Squall!_

_He's still back there! _He hears his own voice, breaking the haze of his self-induced shock. It tears from his burning lungs as he's dragged into the safety of the ship. The pilot turns, regarding him with pity, but turns the ship in the other direction.

_There's no time, kid._

Squall slumps against the window, eyes scouring the streets below for any sign of _him_. A flash of blond, a large sword, anything. Anything, anything—

Nothing. There's nothing but a mass of black swarming over the entire city. The airship veers away, but he can still see the city below clearly as it erupts in flames. _No_—_!_

_Cloud!_

His eyes snap open fiercely, that name on his lips as he comes to. He forces himself to sit, arms wrapped around himself as he surveys his dark room bitterly. He won't say that name—his tainted tongue isn't worthy.

He gets out of bed, untangling himself from the sweat-dampened sheets and crossing the room. He pushes past the half-open door, feet numb against the cold hardwood floor as he makes his way down the dark hallway. He trudges into the bathroom, bracing himself against the sink as he turns his gaze upwards to examine his face in the mirror, illuminated only by the nightlight on the wall. It's only been a year, but he looks significantly older than he did in his dream—older than he looked last year, when he left Cloud to die.

His eyes are paler now, the blue hue drained out so they're only a faint gray. The scar slashes angrily across his face like a silent vow that that day will never be forgotten. He hates the man he sees in that mirror—a coward named Squall. It's not him—it is, but it can't be. Squall wouldn't have come this far. Squall would've withered away, defeated by guilt. No, that's exactly what happened to him. So... who is he?

He is someone else entirely. The remains left behind by the worthless Squall that once inhabited this body. He's…

_Leon._

Cloud had called him that. The kid he'd known in Radiant Garden, whom he'd promised to deliver from the apocalyptic city. Fine, he tells himself, he'll be Leon, to honor the memory of the boy he killed—no, the boy Squall killed. He'll be Leon, not only to distance himself from his crime but to serve as a reminder that he can not, _will not_, ever again fail anyone the way he failed Cloud.

He'll leave Squall far behind him, along with the guilt, the nightmares, everything, _please_…

He walks back to his room, settling mechanically into bed and pulling the covers over him. Sleep beckons, but it is welcome now. Squall will have those nightmares, not him. He's done nothing to warrant them. He's not the one who ran from the heartless—not the one who left Cloud to die.

That was Squall.

He's Leon.

--

* * *

**A/N:** This one's obviously speculation on Squall becoming Leon.

For the record, revamping began November 7th, 2008. 4/7/07 (the 'published' date for this story) is when I originally uploaded Burned Out as a oneshot.


	2. Light Switch

**II. Light Switch**

Lying in bed and gazing at the ceiling of his friend's dark bedroom, Cloud had to admit that he was impressed. He'd always looked up to Squall—or Leon, as he liked to call the other boy sometimes. When no one was around, of course. Squall had everything he wanted for himself; he was well-liked—popular, even, despite the fact that he was distant and sometimes unfriendly. He had this _aura_ that commanded so much space and respect, and everyone seemed to honor it. And he was completely independent. Cloud found it endlessly impressive that Squall—only 16—owned an apartment of his own. He worked nights and supported himself while his father's abandoned house gathered dust a few miles away, since Laguna was always out of town. He was a true loner, it seemed. Self-contained. Free.

Cloud wasn't sure how he'd ever gotten the older boy's attention. He knew he'd managed to keep it due to his skill with a sword, which—despite his age—made him a good sparring partner. But they hung out, too, not only to train but just to spend time together, and Cloud had been secretly thrilled when he'd realized that they were actually _friends_.

It was true that his love for Squall was something close to idol worship; he couldn't think of anything he wanted more than to be just like the older boy. Still, it wasn't an entirely impersonal worship—nor an entirely innocent one—and there was more to it than simply putting his friend on a pedestal. There was a special bond, of sorts.

After all, it had to mean something that Squall let him use a silly pet name like Leon, or that the older teen let him stay the night whenever he wanted, even though Irvine—whom Squall claimed was his best friend—always got kicked out at midnight. It seemed to mean something when they were sitting on the roof, or lying on the plush carpet, or sprawled on the couch, and talking about nothing in particular. It certainly meant something to Cloud that _he _was allowed to sit on the kitchen counter and eat ice cream out of the carton even though Aerith—who was his age—wouldn't dare.

But his fond musings were growing distant, his attention slowly stolen away by the growing unease in his gut. He was starting to feel ill, his stomach turning, his gut twisting uncomfortably. His throat felt tight, knotted, cold pricking his skin as though he was getting a fever. He gave a small groan of displeasure, rolling onto his side and clenching clammy fists around the chilled sheets. The pillow smelled like Squall, and it made him feel a little better. He curled up slightly, shutting his eyes and trying to force himself to sleep—but, of course, it didn't work. His eyes drifted back open before long and he was staring blankly into the darkness again. The bed was quite comfortable, but he couldn't shake off the stirring sense of dread that awoke from somewhere within him and rose in his throat like bile; it felt like there was a fist around his throat, constricting him, slowly strangling him, as though he wouldn't notice if his demise was gradual enough.

Willing himself out of bed, he stumbled along the hardwood floor and made his way down the hall, past the bathroom, into the living room. He paused for a moment as he approached the couch, gaze flickering over the dormant figure there, and wondered faintly what he was doing.

"Squall?" he called softly, wondering if the other was asleep by now. Probably would be. It had been a while since they'd exchanged good-nights.

He edged forward quietly so as not to wake the brunet, crouching beside the couch when he reached it. His eyes scanned the other's form, illuminated by the pale light streaming through the sliding glass doors that led out to the balcony. He felt a bit like he was trespassing as he watched Squall, but there was also a little thrill to knowing that he was one of few to see the stoic brunet unguarded. He couldn't look away, his gaze tracing the usually-scowling features that were now relaxed and content. His fingers twitched at his sides as his eyes traveled over the older boy's bowed lips and he swallowed thickly, releasing a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

Cloud almost jumped when the brunet's eyes opened, and Squall muttered, "Couldn't get to sleep?"

"Y-yeah."

"Me neither." Squall frowned, averting his eyes to glance around the room casually, succeeded somewhat at in hiding his unease. Something was _off_, undeniably so, but he didn't want to worry the younger boy. He tried to ignore it, despite the knowledge that no gut feeling so blatant could be shrugged off as "nothing." There was something—something big.

"Leon, look—!" Cloud cried suddenly, pointing a finger at the night sky.

Squall turned his head in time to see a brightly glowing star give a fierce, final surge of light before vanishing altogether. And then another.

"The stars..." Cloud whispered, staring in disbelief before looking back to the best source of comfort he knew—only to see Squall's eyes wide with an emotion he'd never believed the stoic brunet was capable of. Terror.

It was only momentary. Almost instantly, the older teen's eyes were walled again, emotionless. But Cloud had seen it, and somehow it scared him more than anything he'd witnessed in all of his 13 years. It struck him harder than watching the stars go out. That single expression, that fleeting look of animal instinct, made it more real for him than watching the apocalypse approach with his own eyes.

Squall was _afraid._

He watched mutely as other stood and crossed the room in silence, picking up the gunblade that was leaned against the wall.

"Let's spar," Squall said.

Cloud stared, dumbstruck, blinking at the older boy as the unexpected words registered. "Wh… in here?"

"Yeah. Why not?"

The brunet's voice was casual, believably nonchalant, but there was an unfamiliar tenseness in the air that couldn't be dismissed. Something was wrong—terribly wrong. Seeing Squall affected by it, too, bothered him more than the sinking feeling in his stomach and the ominous chill on his senses. If it was just him, he could shrug it off as something that would be better tomorrow. But Squall was never wrong.

Cloud watched quietly, unsure of what was transpiring, not quite able to put two and two together. Life as they knew it was on a razor's edge; by tomorrow, nothing would be the same. The sickening churn in his gut told him as much. What unnerved him, drove him insane with the ever-growing suspense, was not knowing what cataclysmic happening they were on the verge of. When he thought back to the fear in his idol's eyes, it seemed to make a bit of sense. The stars were going out. It was the end of their world. The least they could do was go out doing the thing they loved most, and maybe trash the only thing they had to call their own in the process.

It was a strange train of thought. It made sense to _him_, in a way, but it puzzled him that Squall—who was normally so calm—had been the one to introduce this rash idea.

"…Okay," he agreed finally, shaken to find that he had to fight to keep the fear out of his voice. "I'll get my sword." He turned, hastily retreated to the room he'd been attempting to sleep in. Snatching his Buster sword off of the floor, he swung it over his shoulder, and calmed slightly at the familiar feel of its weight resting there. He stood there in silence, listening to Squall's footsteps as they moved towards the door and the dull clang that echoed through the apartment when he dead bolted it.

_What's he so scared of?_

Cloud turned his gaze towards the window of Squall's bedroom. It would've seemed normal out there, but for the intangible dread and the dying gleam of the stars overhead as they gave out one by one. What, exactly, was coming?

His blue eyes—lacking the glow of mako that would later make them so distinctive—surveyed the empty streets of Radiant Garden, a strange emptiness filling him at the thought that soon this world would no longer exist. Fears teased his mind—rumors of the eternal damnation that met all who were taken by the darkness. Tales of the torture and enslavement of those who tried to escape the destruction of the worlds.

His young features set fiercely and Cloud tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword with a grim smile. If the fates had any mercy to spare him, he'd be dead by tomorrow. He turned from the window, a part of him wilting as he trudged back to the living room where his friend was waiting for him, gunblade in hand. He was resigned to his fate. He was.

He wouldn't be afraid. He wouldn't.

He wanted to fight Squall until neither of them could move, and then he'd open his heart to the darkness as it ate them alive. _That_ was the way to face certain doom, he told himself as a humorless grin crossed his usually-innocent face.

_With open arms and a smirk plastered across your face. Right, Zack? _

He swung the Buster down forcefully to push the sudden image of Zack's face out of his mind—his late friend, as well as the original owner of the sword now lodged in the floor. He didn't deserve to remember Zack. This _world _hadn't deserved Zack; that was why he'd had to die. At least the violet-eyed man wasn't here to witness the end of the world he'd loved so much.

Cloud turned his eyes upwards, jerking his sword out of the floor and jabbing it in the direction of the brunet on the other side of the room. "Ready, Leon?" He called, feeling the burn of raw energy across his nerves as the invisible walls surrounding the other boy went down and Squall's aura pulsed through the room like a shockwave. The gates lifted in the taller boy's eyes, stormy blue darkening with battle lust as his usually-expressionless lips curled into a feral smirk.

"Go for it." Those words weren't spoken; they were issued, in a low growl that sent reckless shivers down the younger boy's spine.

Why was Squall so _amazing_?

Buster gripped in both hands, Cloud dove forward, his pulse soaring at that first clang of steel as Revolver's blade met his own. He left all his fears behind, shedding every last thought about the darkness and the impending catastrophe, losing himself instead in the fight and the man he was fighting. He attacked relentlessly, swinging as quickly and fiercely as the weight of his sword would allow, and each of his powerful blows was countered with calculated precision. They came to a standstill, blades locked, and he shoved the combined weight of his body and sword against Squall's gunblade.

The brunet leapt back, landing smoothly on the couch before he hurled himself forward again. Revolver's tip snared the drywall and drew an ugly gash behind the gunblader as he ran to meet his opponent. And with that signal, the destruction began. Chairs were splintered—one over the flat of a blade, another when it collided with a foot and then a wall. Doors were felled, thrown off their hinges. Kitchen cupboards were trounced, doors torn off as they were used as projectiles, contents shattering across the tiled floor when Squall slammed Cloud into them a little too hard.

It was easily the most intense sparring match either of them had ever experienced. Nothing—_nothing—_was off limits. Everything was a weapon. Everything could be massacred. Chaos was preferred.

Having made a full circle back to the living room, Cloud dodged an attack and retaliated, cleaving the couch clean in two when Squall darted aside to avoid the blow. With a grin he threw the weight of his sword around, momentum carrying it in a perfect semicircle to defend him from Revolver. The brunet's quick blows backed him into the corner and he gave a low growl as his back met the wall. He pushed out with the flat of his sword, but to no avail; Squall won out when it came to sheer strength, Buster sword or not.

Cloud ceased to struggle as the flat of his sword was pressed against his chest, the other boy's eyes tracking his every move watchfully. His heart was already racing from the duel, but the other's proximity was enough to drive it faster. Licking his suddenly parched lips, Cloud shoved Buster's hilt forward with all his strength. The sword pivoted on his shoulder and buried itself in the wall with a bang, its hilt jabbing Squall in the chest and knocking the wind out of him. The brunet staggered back slightly, giving the younger boy his out, and Cloud grinned triumphantly.

Of course, now his sword was lodged firmly in the wall.

Opting to discard the weapon altogether, Cloud tackled Squall, grabbing a hold of the other and kicking off of the wall to propel them forward. The taller boy gave a grunt of pain as his back collided with the ground, his gunblade slipping past his fingers and spinning out across the floor.

There was a pause as they skidded to a halt, before the blond yelped in surprise as their positions were reversed in the blink of an eye and he was pinned to the ground. He instinctively tried to displace the other, grappling for dominance, and they wrestled briefly until it became obvious that Squall had emerged the victor.

Cloud finally gave in and fell motionless, the heat of battle draining away from him and leaving him pleasantly relaxed. He let his turquoise eyes trace the other's face, unwittingly forgetting to breathe. Squall's hair was mussed, jagged bangs falling over his eyes as he hovered over the younger boy. His eyes glowed with the lingering adrenaline, his face flushed as he caught his breath. All of it combined formed an image that suggested he'd been doing something quite different than fighting—a thought that sent a shudder through the young blond's body.

"Ready for round two?" The brunet asked, unmoving, braced on both arms as he kept the blond trapped beneath him.

Cloud felt a jolt at the accidental innuendo that statement presented and shook his head as his pulse kicked up a notch. "I'm tired," he lied, both relieved and disappointed when the older boy finally consented to let him go.

Squall removed himself from atop his friend, turning towards the doorwall and lying down on his stomach with his chin propped up on crossed arms. His eyes scanned the darkening night sky, watching as the glimmering lights in the heavens were doused one by one.

The blond mimicked the gesture, turning so he was lying next to the brunet in a similar position. His gut clenched as he watched the number of pinpricks in the sky dwindle, wondering what fate awaited them when Radiant Garden was—at last—left in complete darkness.

An uneasy sleep overtook the young blond as the hours wore on, and Squall watched, his eyes shifting between his friend's sleeping form and the vanishing stars. He couldn't help feeling protective of Cloud, the younger boy's face revealing his youth and innocence, if only in sleep. He allowed a slight smile to tug at his lips at the way the boy had snuggled against him unconsciously.

But when he glanced up just in time to see the final star above Radiant Garden give a feeble flicker and die, that smile was lost along with it.

--

* * *

**A/N:** For those who didn't follow the arc the first time around, Light Switch (which is a two-shot, by the way) is an indirect prequel of sorts to Burned Out.


	3. Light Switch 2

**III. Light Switch (pt. 2)**

Cloud woke abruptly. He didn't know what was going on yet, only half removed from sleep, but his mind was reeling by the time he came to. He could feel the tension in the air, and over the noise outside he could hear the urgency in Squall's voice.

"Cloud, get your sword."

The young blond rubbed his eyes, gaze focusing on Squall's white-knuckled grip on Revolver's hilt. In the background, the apartment was a wreck, everything overturned and in disarray. It took a moment for it to click—their last-ditch sparring match, the extinguished stars, and now....

"The city's under attack."

And now, judgment day had arrived as promised.

Adrenaline rushed him, and he stood and wrenched his sword out of the crumbling drywall. "Let's go," he said as he turned dutifully towards the older boy, his voice clear with a fierce confidence that didn't match his size. Despite his young age, he was trained to know only one resolve in the face of danger. He felt the brunet's gaze on him but refused to meet the other's eyes, his attention funneling onto the door as he approached it. He halted as a hideous roaring erupted in the hall outside, followed by gunshots and yells, and then quick footsteps scrambling away. "Under attack by what, exactly?" he asked, turning back to face his friend, eyes narrowed.

"I have no idea," Squall replied carefully, eyebrows furrowing. "From what I saw… it doesn't make sense," he decided quickly, shouldering his gunblade and moving to join the other at the door. From what he'd seen, it looked like the shadows had come to life and started attacking. That was impossible. Beyond impossible.

"What did I miss?" Cloud bit out, loosening his grip on his sword as he made his way over to the window and peered outside.

"These… shadow things showed up—all these fires started out of nowhere—Cloud, we have to get out of here."

"And go _where_?" The younger boy asked sharply, gesturing out the window grimly at the streets below. They were in chaos, sentient shadows engulfing crowds of people who were scattering like bugs below. Bugs armed with guns and swords and whatever else they could arm themselves with. A pitiable fight, but a fight for survival nonetheless. "Out there? Going out there is suicide."

"You're right," Squall said, voice undeterred as his blue-gray eyes followed the slowly advancing flames that gained ground in the city below them. "But staying here…" He lapsed into silence, unable to find words to express his disdain for the utter worthlessness of staying. If death was really coming for them, why—_why_—not just go out and meet it? What was there to lose?

It would be easier, Cloud thought tentatively, to hide here until death found him—to wait, cowering, for it to come and retrieve him—than to go out and face it head-on. It was a tempting thought and he couldn't help but consider it, however briefly, before his friend posed a rhetorical question that jarred him back to reality.

"You're a swordsman, aren't you, Cloud?"

-

_Violet eyes. A gorgeous smile and a warm, sincerely friendly voice. "Hey there, little guy. Nice to meetcha."_

_A defiant pout on the face of a sandy-haired five year old as a wooden sword flails in the air. "Watch it, I'm a swordsman! And I'm not little!"_

"_Okay, okay. Sorry there, Soldier. Forgive me?" The epitome of good will and perfection, smiling down at him with such innocent charm that he can't possibly say no._

_A childish glare. "I said swordsman, not soldier."_

_-  
_

The blond boy hesitated, eyes averted. He was a kid with a sword—he always had been. He'd never been given the chance to be a swordsman before. He'd never intended—not really—to live and die by the sword that was more of a memento than anything.

-

_A phone call. Killed in action, she says. Thought he should know, she says._

_He doesn't know what to do. He curses Ramuh, and Odin, and Leviathan, and Ifrit and Shiva and Kjata and Bahamut and Alexander and every other deity he's ever heard of for not protecting Zack. He curses the war, curses the fighting and the violence and the killing. Curses Zack for breaking his promise to stay safe and come back alive. And that night, he dreams._

_Warm blood, seeping down a perfectly chiseled face. Crimson, drying at the corner of cracked lips. "Don't look, Soldier. That's an order."_

_That same fair-haired boy, a few years later—his hair now styled in spikes, the way Zack taught him—watches on hopelessly, even as he tells himself that it's only a dream. "You're hurt—"_

"_It's all right. That just means it's time for me to go now." A reassuring smile._

"_Wh-where are you going?" Hands trembling at his sides as something warm and wet soaks his pillowcase and it grows cold against his cheek. No. _No!

"_Away. Don't be sad, okay? I hate seeing you sad," Zack rambles, even as his breaths shallow and his eyes remain closed, his body an indistinct sprawl against the blood-stained ground._

"_Where are you going!?" He repeats, frantically._

"_Don't ever give up—okay, Soldier? Keep training. You'll make a great swordsman."_

"_Wh—Zack? …Zack!"_

_When he awakens, the silence is unforgiving and empty._

_-  
_

Cloud turned his eyes up slowly, catching Squall's gaze cautiously. He watched, gauged his confidence in the older boy's resolve, held it to his own in comparison. "Aren't you?" He challenged, turquoise eyes alight with determination.

"We'll see, won't we?"

With a curt nod, Cloud crossed the apartment door and, before he could have any second thoughts, slammed the deadbolt out of place, flipped the lock, and jerked the door open. Black shapes immediately flooded the doorway, throwing themselves onto him. His mind stopped—time stopped; he felt Revolver poised, the older boy prepared to come to his aid if he failed to react, and he felt himself cut through his attackers easily with his sword, Zack's sword. The shadows dispersed as they were sliced in half, splotches of black sinking to the carpet and meshing eerily into the shadows cast by the mangled furniture. He'd never fought for his life before, and he'd never encountered an adversary who could just… disappear.

Cloud examined the empty hall around him as Squall joined him in the doorway. He could see the door to the stairwell a ways off and hoisted the Buster up. "Ready?" he asked, glancing up at the brunet.

Squall gave a slight nod, scanning the hall briefly once more before he turned back to the other. Their eyes met, cueing each other, and the two took off, tearing towards the door that would put one more wall between them and home—one less wall between them and their demise. The older boy wrenched the door open and slammed it behind them when they reached the stairs. He reached instinctively for the younger boy's hand, as though to confirm that he was still there, before starting down the stairs.

They made it down several flights, almost down to the ground floor, before the darkness pooling like liquid on the steps—like paint dripped over misplaced shadows—began to shape into more shadow creatures, each more hideous, more disfigured, and tenfold more realistic than the last. They were pitch black save for the hungry yellow gleam of their eyes and the dim red hearts drawn across their chests.

Back to back in the stairwell, the boys fought, striking out at their opponents with complimentary blows that betrayed the fact that they'd trained together. Their blades cut through the shadows with the sickening sound of flesh being cleaved off the bone, air filling with the stench of their bitter, black blood.

Squall lowered his gunblade slowly as the last of them vanished, reduced to nothing more than a dark smear along the wall. "That all of them?" He asked, eyes darting.

"I think so, yeah." Dropping his stance, the blond boy grabbed ahold of the other's wrist to pull him down the final flight of stairs and into the main landing of the apartment complex. The fluorescent light bulbs on the ceiling had been shattered but for a few that had been spared and flickered feebly overhead. He winced at the angry smear of visceral crimson on the glass double doors that separated the lobby from the streets outside.

Without thinking, he made a mad dash for those doors, jerking to a halt as something dark erupted out of the ground before him. Before he could react, he was suffocating, eyes wide and lungs burning as black tendrils wrapped around his nose and mouth, shadows snaring him like a mass of restless snakes and rooting him to the spot. He gasped frantically for air, but there was none, and he writhed in panic against his binds. He could feel the hand as it formed from somewhere within the mass of black matter enveloping him, ice-cold fingers clawing at his chest above his frantically pounding heart as though trying to rip it out of him.

He could feel his consciousness giving out as he struggled, tried to find any amount of composure in him to stay calm and _think rationally_, but all he could do was wonder where Squall had gone. His eyes darted, landed on the brunet, who was attempting to fight off the same dark tendrils as they wrapped around him. Shadows were gathering from all around them, molding themselves into a towering mass of black that was rapidly shaping itself into something reminiscent of a dragon: a large, serpentine body with wing-like appendages.

The topmost layer of fluid shadow melted off of it, revealing an intricately textured hide of scales and sharp ridges. Its yellow eyes were deeply set above powerful jaws lined with rows of large teeth that dripped with a thick, tar-like saliva. As it reared up to its full height, towering over the two boys, the large outline of a stylized heart became visible on its bared ventral side. The hideous creature, a product of spontaneous generation gone terribly wrong, drew its first breath, a rasp of air that filled its newly formed lungs with a grotesque rattling noise.

Cloud had managed to free his hands enough to claw away the dark appendages obstructing his face so that he could breathe, chest heaving in an attempt to make up for lost oxygen as he strained to reach the sword on the ground beside him. Before he could do so, the creature struck him with its tail, the casual blow sending him flat on his back. He heard Squall give a yell, heard him hurl Revolver through the air.

The dragon gave a shriek of pain that made him wish he was deaf (as he scrambled to his feet, sword in hand), jerking its injured tail away and spraying the room with the dark blood that spilled from the wound. It twisted the nearly-severed appendage behind it in agony, but it was only moments before its gaze locked back on Squall, ebony tongue flickering out at the gunblader in malicious humor.

It lunged for Cloud, and he met it with a blow to the face that only seemed to anger it. It continued to attack and he continued to parry, countering its jabbing snout. The dragon was growing more solid with every moment that passed, increasingly less like a shadow. But before he could see how real it could possibly become, Squall had buried Revolver into the dragon's chest, right in the center of the heart insignia, and pulled the trigger. The vibrations that exploded down the blade were louder than a gunshot, metal roaring as it blew a hole through the creature. It tumbled to the ground, writhing weakly as its solidifying body melted back into nothing more than liquid shadow, and then an intangible state altogether.

Squall watched for a moment, mesmerized, as what had been a monster moments before became nothing but the darkness of the room around them. The last of the shadowy tendrils had evaporated off of him, leaving no evidence of the battle that had taken place save for the distant hum of fading adrenaline and the jolt of worry as he ran to his friend's side.

Cloud was okay, just shaken, and the two of them made their way past the glass doors at last and on to the streets of Radiant Garden. It reeked of smoke and fear outside, an unappetizing combination if there ever was one. Squall was about to inquire as to which way the blond wanted to go, when he became aware that his friend was trembling—however faintly—beside him.

The younger boy glanced up, feeling the other's gaze on him. "What?"

"Are you scared?"

Cloud shrugged a shoulder casually, trying to ignore the feeling of his heart skipping beats in his chest. Every minute they succeeded in surviving was another minute to dwell on the notion that pretty soon those successes would cease. More than anything, it scared him to know that he was—in fact—afraid of death.

"A little," he allowed, his voice almost betraying him.

"Don't be."

The tone of the Squall's voice startled him, reassuring in a way that was more personal—more thoroughly effective—than he would've expected from the other boy. He wondered suddenly when Squall had gotten so close, suddenly became very aware of their proximity and the look in the brunet's eyes. His own eyes widened as Squall leaned down and, in one swift motion, cupped his face and pressed their lips together in a brief kiss.

"I'm going to get you out of here," Squall murmured between them, holding the younger boy's gaze. "I promise."

--

* * *

**A/N:** Back when I was doing this arc the first time around, their sparring match and the mini-boss here were the first fights I'd ever written, so they were REALLY BAD in the original. XD I think it's infectious, though. It's hard to revamp and NOT bring the phail along with you. D:


	4. Play Dead

**IV. Play Dead**

_Squall! _

He yelled that name until his voice was hoarse and his throat burned, and it echoed in his skull in the hours that followed. His arms throbbed but he continued to swing his buster sword aimlessly through the crowd of heartless around him, hands raw and stinging as his flesh was worn thin from wielding the heavy blade. If only to prolong his own destruction, to delay the end, just a little longer, he'd push himself to his limits—past them, if need be. His entire body was aching, lungs burning as he breathed in labored pants. He was covered in gore and grime and sweat, and it wasn't helping that almost everything that hadn't already been burned to the ground was in flames, turning the air around him into a scalding mess.

Cloud wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, spitting on the cracked cement at the bitter tang of foreign blood that entered his mouth. He'd expected the darkness to come after him—the same darkness that had taken Zack. A metaphorical darkness, a deliverance that seemed merciful by the time it came to end his suffering—something poetic like that. Not these... things.

The young boy gave a grunt of exertion as he hurled the Buster forward with all of his strength, cutting through the last of the heartless before slumping against the brick wall behind him, chest heaving for air. He winced as the wounds on his bare back met the rough surface, recalled how his shirt had been torn to shreds in the claws of a massive heartless that he'd barely escaped.

This was surreal; he was dreaming—he had to be. Shadows didn't come to life and attack people. Cities didn't spontaneously combust. It was like something out of a bad horror flick. _Wake up..._

He clenched his eyes shut, trying to ignore the crackling of the flames that danced around him, tried to pretend there was no smoke in the air, that there were no blisters on his hands. _Wake up!_

He wrenched his eyes open, gasping for air as dust and smoke filled his lungs. Coughing violently as he hauled himself up, he supported his weight on the sword wedged into the charred earth. For all he knew, he could be the last person alive in all of Radiant Garden. There was a thought.

It was all he could do to hold on to the Buster, to drag it behind him as he trudged down the streets. He was dripping with sweat but he could feel his skin pricking with goose bumps, and it felt unbearably _cold_.

His teeth chattered, fingers shuddering numbly on the hilt of his sword as he dragged it along the cracked cement, almost delusional as he made his way painstakingly through the rapidly deteriorating city. The sky was black with smoke, the air heavy with the rancid scent of death. At every corner he turned, he almost expected to see tall, dark gates looming over Radiant Garden. Any moment now, surely, he'd be approaching the very gates of Hell.

Glazed eyes surveyed the area, and he wondered faintly if he'd already died and gone there. There was nothing to tell him this wasn't Hell—not a glimmer of comfort or hope, not a glimpse of another living being. The side of town he'd ended up on now was even void of _dead_ bodies, a mixed blessing if there ever was one. There was nothing—nothing at all—save for him.

Maybe _this_ was Hell.

His throat constricted at the thought, and Cloud shook himself firmly. No. He was still alive; the rasp of hot air in his throat and the warmth of the blood trickling down the side of his face could attest to that. It was him against the world, but he'd come this far, fought this hard, and he hadn't been taken down yet. He'd breathe the scalding smoke and walk this desolate, waking hell forever if that's what it took; there was no way he'd lie down and die—no way he'd give them that satisfaction, whatever they were.

His turquoise eyes, dim and bloodshot, darted madly as he heard footsteps, not too far away. He spun around, adrenaline rushing his senses as he hoisted the Buster's weight up, stumbling in the direction the sound had come from—down a narrow alley. "Hello?" He tried, his voice rough but cautious, hands white-knuckled as they gripped the hilt of his sword. He continued down the cobbled alley slowly, falling into a defensive stance as he emerged in an open area, the side wall of a towering cathedral not far off.

The stained glass windows had been smashed in, and the gardens were on fire, giving it a hellish appearance as grimy walls flickered red. The stench of burning flesh filled his nostrils and Cloud gagged. He was struck with the immediate desire to cover his nose and mouth, but nothing could bring him to wrench his hands away from his sword as he made his way towards the tall double-doors at the front of the building.

One of the doors was cracked and he kicked it open, suppressing a shudder as the eerie creak of its hinges caught him off guard. "Hello?" He called again, his voice hoarse. There was a slight creaking inside, of wood underfoot as someone paused, as though in response. "Who's there?" His voice came out louder this time, and more urgent. When he was met by silence, the blond boy slowly stepped into the dark atrium. He could hear faint footsteps, moving away from him, and started towards them. They were quick but light and unhurried, so unlike his own jerky, fearful paces.

Cloud followed the sound down the hall and finally into a large open room. He felt his way along the wall in the dark, instinct warning him against open spaces, and made his way past the empty pews towards the dimly lit altar at the far end of the room. Gripping his sword tightly, the young boy swallowed thickly.

There was a soft _thump_ as the other person sat down—or, if he could've seen, as someone sat him down—somewhere in the room. He saw a small gleam of light, and the unmistakable flicker of a flame, setting fire to several points in the darkness, illuminating the shape of many tall, thin candles and the outline of a person.

"Hello?" The blond tried again, loud enough for the other to hear. There was no reply, and he stood still as the minutes passed in silence.

Fighting back his fears, Cloud moved away from the wall in the direction of the candlelight, flinching slightly at each sound of his own footsteps. He tried to force himself to calm down, deepening the breaths that had grown shallow and quick, and walking more purposefully towards the person at the front of the altar. His eyes widened as he recognized the kneeling figure; his long ebony hair curtained his face, hiding it from view, but he was unmistakable—especially with the massive red cape draped loosely over one shoulder.

"V... Vince?"

The older boy was silent as Cloud ran forward, letting his sword clatter to the ground. "Oh, god..." he breathed, sinking to his knees beside his friend as he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

Vincent was on his knees with his head bowed as though in prayer and—from what Cloud could see—his shirt had been removed, and folded neatly on the ground nearby. His body was obscured by the cape, and the only thing the younger boy could see was his extended bare right arm and the gun loosely clasped in his pale fingers.

"God, Vince, I thought I was the only one," he said through gulps of air, as exhaustion took hold of him—as time caught up with him—and he realized how spent he really was. He'd been on the run all day; every muscle in his body ached and his throat was raw from the smoke, his mouth dry, his hands scabbing and blistered. His head was spinning dangerously, and he felt defenseless, clad in nothing but a pair of torn pants.

When had he lost his shoes, his socks? He hadn't even realized that his feet were cut and bleeding. "Vince, what do we do now?" His voice fell to a tired whisper, "How do we get out of here? What's going to happen to us?" He felt his eyes burn with exhaustion, rubbed away the blur of his vision with the heel of his palm.

As his momentary relief and comfort wore off, he began to feel a cold nagging in his gut. Why... he froze as the doubt began to infiltrate his mind, a malicious fear that polluted his sweet—impossibly sweet and thoroughly temporary—respite from horror. Why wasn't Vincent saying anything? Why wasn't he moving?

_Why!? _The thought was an erratic cry in his skull.

"Vince?" His voice was trembling, and so were his fingers when he reached forward slowly to push the older boy's hair back from his face. He shifted so he was face to face with the other and pulled the long ebony locks back, pushing them behind his older friend's ear—

Cloud let out a hoarse yell and recoiled sharply, jerking his hand back, eyes widening even as he tried to block out the sight before him. _N-no..._

His vision fogged again, this time with pure shock as he stared, completely dumbfounded. Vincent wasn't _dead_; that couldn't possibly be the right way to describe it. He was...

The gunner's face was streaked with fresh blood—his own blood—and the rough strokes formed a crude sort of heart with an X across it. He recognized it faintly as the symbol the shadow creatures bore, the insignia branded on their heartless chests. There were crimson fingerprints littering the dead boy's pale neck, as though someone had left them only with the intention of desecrating the body. His shoulders were bruised where large hands had held them in a death grip.

Cloud stared helplessly, bile rising in his throat as his eyes trailed lower. He wanted to look away but he couldn't bring himself to move. Vincent's sternum had been sliced clean in half, his ribs broken in to reveal a gaping hole in the center of his chest. Right about where his heart should've been. This was completely unwarranted, he thought distantly, a completely arbitrary—completely ill—act of mutilation.

He did look away when he found the heart that Vincent had been robbed of, the organ lying in a pool of stagnant blood underneath the boy's left hand.

His own hands shook at his sides, and he wondered helplessly, frantically, who would do something like this. Heartless didn't do this—that much he knew from what he'd seen of the shadow creatures. They were reckless, true, but never so perverse. They killed, but out of instinct, not for pleasure. Only something as disgustingly creative as a human could do this—could _want _to do this. But who would—?

He was shivering uncontrollably now, the fear he'd been too shocked to acknowledge at first pouncing on him, overtaking him, besting him, consuming him entirely. Whoever had done it could be right here, in this very room—had to be near; he'd _heard_ Vincent—Gods, Vincent—being placed so ceremoniously on the floor, watched the candles being lit. Those footsteps he'd heard—

His heart threw itself against his ribcage, blood pounding through his veins as he glanced around fearfully. Had Vincent been killed first—killed, mercifully killed—or had he still been conscious when—?

He had to get out of here. Now.

Gods, _now._

He wanted nothing more at that moment than to wake up on the floor of Squall's apartment with the brunet leaning over him and teasing him for sleeping in. But he wouldn't be waking up any time soon—_please don't let me die—_and he'd probably never see Squall again. Reaching over and picking up his Buster sword, he tried to—_God, please_—force himself to think rationally.

_Please._

He'd have to find the nearest exit, and quickly. And it would be a good idea to get that gun—it could save his life, and Vincent... he released a shaky breath. Vincent—Gods, _Vincent—_wouldn't need it anymore. Crouching down beside his friend, Cloud pulled the gun from the other's chilled hands, shuddered as their fingers brushed. He felt sick—felt so unbearably _sick_.

_He doesn't need it anymore_. _I do._

As he was turning towards the exit near the back of the room, he paused, hesitated, eyed the cape and the shirt folded beside his friend before stooping to gather them.

"Thanks, Vince," he muttered, lips curving into the faintest of smiles. And with that he turned away, made his way to the door, away, out of the godforsaken place. He followed the stone wall around the corner, surveying the area mistrustfully before setting his sword against the wall to quickly pull the shirt on, to sling the cape over his shoulders. It felt so intrusive, wearing a dead person's clothes—

He stopped himself short, forcing himself to drop that train of thought. They weren't Vincent's clothes anymore. As grateful as he was for them, they were his now. He had to get over what he'd seen, or he'd be caught off guard, and he'd be killed. Survival was his priority.

Retrieving his sword, the blond crossed the grassy clearing, tried to weigh his options quickly, mind still reeling. The shadows might be more inclined to appear in the trees, where everything was dark and shaded, but he didn't know that for a fact. What he did know was that out in the open, anyone could find him. The shadows. The person who'd killed—massacred—Vincent.

At that thought, he ducked into the woods; he tried to run but the sword hindered him; his arms were sore and the Buster was too big to weave around trees with. Finally, in one last pitch at survival, he let it fall to the ground. He'd have to leave it. It was his last resort by far, but he'd reached it; there was no way he could carry the sword any longer, much less hack through the undergrowth his exhaustion. He would have to flee, unarmed.

...Not entirely unarmed, he reminded himself, seeking comfort in the cold touch of steel as he brushed a hand against the gun. But it was nothing like the reassuring feeling of a sword, and he'd never even fired a gun before. So he began to run, fueled by nothing but one final surge of sheer desperation. It wasn't even adrenaline, wasn't a second—hundredth? Thousandth?—wind; it was the only thing left, when all of his other outs had forsaken him, when he had been stripped of everything but his final, most primal instinct to _stay alive_.

He could hear the deafening rush of blood in his ears as he pushed through the growth desperately, struggling to put as much distance between himself and the monster he knew was somewhere behind him. _I don't want to die—I dont—!_

He panted for air, struggling to swallow around the lump in his throat as the frantic, incoherent thoughts raced through his brain. His limbs were numb and sore at the same time, pain lancing through him with every stride, muscles threatening to cramp with every step he took, but he couldn't stop, had to keep running if he valued his life—

And then he heard it.

Over the sound of himself crashing through the growth and his own erratic breathing, there was the lightest sound of footfall somewhere behind him. His heart seemed to stop dead as he spun around, eyes wide as he tried to quiet the sound of his own terror to listen for more. There was a soft crunch underfoot as something approached slowly, not hindered or hesitating, but with a restrained confidence that its prey was indisputably within reach.

Cloud backed against a thick tree, torn hands gripping the rough bark as the sound neared. It seemed to lull him into a trance, but maybe the last of his strength had finally just been spent. He sank against the trunk behind him, barely able to keep his eyes open as a figure stepped into view. He reached for the gun as his vision blurred, the forest spinning sickeningly around him. The weapon tumbled from his grip as he fell to his hands and knees, retching violently. Blood and vomit splattered across the forest floor, the bitter mixture forcing itself past his cracked lips until there was nothing more to be emptied from his stomach. His arms quivered, threatened to give out beneath him, barely able to hold up his weight any longer, and the beaten boy turned his eyes up painstakingly to look upon the man standing before him.

He was the epitome of beauty, tall and broad with long, silver hair that curtained his leather-clad body and a single black wing that stretched out luxuriously behind him. At his hip was a sword, a mockery of a katana that was too long to possibly draw. And he had the blond boy's discarded sword, easily holding the Buster's weight steady with one hand.

"You must be very strong," the man said, in an ethereal voice that seemed to bypass his ears and enter his mind directly. His alluring lips curved into a mirthless smirk, "Or perhaps just very scared."

Cloud's fingers curled against the gnarled roots below him as he struggled to speak. "Who... are you?" he gritted out, his voice hollow.

The silver-haired man didn't answer him. Instead, he crouched so he was more or less level with him, tipping the boy's chin up and looking him in the eye. "I can make you an angel. Would you like that?"

Cloud tried to pull away from the touch but couldn't find the strength to. The man was crazy, he decided. He had no idea what the other was talking about, but he had no more words to offer except the mantra that had kept him on his feet all day. "If it will keep me alive..." he managed, "I'll do anything."

"You fear death." It was true. So, _so_ true.

"No," the boy lied, reached blindly for any other motive to keep going. He wasn't a coward. He couldn't be a coward. He refused—with the final, most stubborn remnants of his will—to have come this far in the name of cowardice. If anyone was a coward here, it was Squall… of course—Squall. "I can't die until he pays…"

The man gave a demonic smirk, emerald eyes glinting with amused approval. Those eyes, their inhuman glow, were dangerous as he spoke his next words. "You want revenge?"

"...Yes."

Excruciating pain jolted his body and Cloud let out a hoarse scream, collapsing onto his side as his arms gave out. Every nerve in his body roared to life in agony as his back tore open. Time stopped; his senses shut off. He was aware of bones snapping and realigning, skin growing—stretching, tearing—to cover his new appendage before hardening into a thick leather. He staggered on the edge of consciousness, the world pitching as it faded underneath him.

And it was done. He'd thwarted death, and in return he'd handed his very being over to the angel of the underworld. The devil wing that now stretched from between his shoulder blades could attest to that. Weighed down by the blood that matted the feathers, the wretched appendage draped ineloquently off of him and sagged against the muddy forest floor. If he wasn't a fallen angel, he looked the part—hideous, broken, marked in his abject subservience—a gruesome clone of the man before him.

He gave a barely audible groan of pain as he was lifted into the arms of the demon that had damned him to Hell—and in turn blessed him with life—clinging desperately to the last threads of consciousness as he felt lips brush his forehead.

"Let us go home," that omniscient voice said, and he thought he heard laughter ringing in his ears as he slumped against the other's pulseless chest, out cold. "Mother is waiting."

The last of Radiant Garden crumbled to the ground, engulfed entirely in flames and swarmed by sentient shadows. In a small clearing next to an abandoned chapel, tall gates tore up from the ground, reaching towards the blackened sky. They swung open, connecting Radiant Garden with Hell for a few brief moments as two beings sharing a single pair of wings crossed into the dark realm.

And when Hell's one-winged angels were safely inside, the gates slammed shut, closing them off from the rest of the world.

--

* * *

**A/N:** I remember saying something similar to this in the original A/N, but ... yeah. I like angst, not torturing the characters, but I think this is appropriate in context. This is probably my favourite part of the arc, to be honest.

I forgot to upload this last weekend, so I figured I should do that before I head out. I'm going out of town for Thanksgiving now, see you guys in a few days c:

_Reviews are rad, as always!_


	5. Stay Dead

**V. Stay Dead  
**

Sephiroth had told him he would get used to it, but for now the Underworld air still seemed musty and stale. It was nicer aboveground, even if he didn't ever want to go up there again. Not after what he'd just done. Cloud's katana lay sheathed at his feet as he sat under an overhang of rock, the mossy growth underneath him tearing as his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. His fingers dug frantically into the soft green, stubbing against the stone surface and he watched them distantly. What he'd done today was something he had no intentions whatsoever of repeating.

_Bodies. Dozens of them. Mangled and discarded at his feet. It's nothing he hasn't seen before, but this time it's different. This time, it is not only terrible but completely and totally horrifying. This time, he cannot grit his teeth and look away and concentrate on survival. Because this time, it is his doing._

"Regretting something?" The voice was so refreshing, so comforting, and yet neither of those things because he remembered so vividly what that voice had driven him to do.

_They're all dead. He wants to bury them out of respect but he can't bring himself to touch them, the sight of colorless flesh and stiff limbs and frosted eyes stunning him into immobility. He stands among them, the scene so familiar and yet so frighteningly different from how it was last time. This time, he is not merely a survivor. This time, he is the villain. _

"I'm not like you," he replied without looking up, drawing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his wing around himself tightly, protectively, shamefully. "I can't… I can't _do that_ just to get stronger."

"Clinging to your unrealistic morals will not clear your conscience, nor will it give you the power to take your revenge."

Revenge? Of course. Revenge, on Squall, for reducing him to this. Revenge, on Squall, who had made him a one-winged _monster_ who could only leave the land of the dead under cover of darkness, and only with a mentor who ordered him to murder and destroy. But he couldn't… he couldn't possibly.... He wasn't seriously considering—?

"What is more important?" Sephiroth asked him evenly, "Justice, or prolonging a life a few moments longer? Even if you had spared them, I would not have."

He had a very good point there, but Cloud was sure his personal justice was not reason enough to slaughter innocents. Surely Sephiroth had a better reason for his actions that he wasn't revealing, but _he_ was just… just Cloud. Seeking revenge on Squall was one thing. Taking it out on unsuspecting people was quite another.

"It is your right to destroy the one who wronged you, and it is your right to do whatever it takes to prepare yourself for that fight."

It made sense, but… no. No, that couldn't possibly be right. There were _limits_. No one was allowed to just go around killing people. No one was above the simple truth that there was right and there was wrong, and this was _wrong_.

But Sephiroth had an answer for everything. He always did. The man knew everything, was everything, could teach him to become the same way. "You must redefine morality," he said.

* * *

-

It was two years to the day he'd first slain a man, Cloud realized as he sheathed the katana at his side, but it was only months ago that he'd first been able to commit the act without feeling anything. The time spent beating away at his humanity was finally paying off, and his abilities had begun to increase exponentially since he'd first managed to gut someone without a second thought. It had come easily, naturally, unforced and unhindered.

He had been so exhausted—so _frightened_, until now, even as he clung desperately to the man who would guide him to enlightenment—and his newfound apathy was incredibly comforting. He could look back on the night with a clean conscience—another job done—and retire to the eternal night of the underworld without another thought. There was no right, no wrong, only Sephiroth. His word was law… no, more than law. Laws could be disobeyed, bent, broken. Sephiroth's word was absolute. The moment it left his lips or was spelt by his sword, it was an irrefutable and universal truth.

It was only now that he dared to look up when addressed, dared to meet the brilliant emerald cat-eyes of his mentor. The older man's gaze captured him completely, stole away all notions of anything else because he would give anything for this man, would give anything to _be_ this man. To have that grace and that incredible power.

He had a taste of it, of course. That look the others gave him—the way even the most powerful of demons thought twice about crossing him when they saw the wing perched between his shoulder blades. The way men much larger than him would keel beneath his sword and become nothing more than flesh—a worthless substance that could do nothing but rot. And once he had a taste of what he could be, everything else became insignificant. It was his foremost desire, to become greater than anything had ever been before, to match his master and one day surpass him. To become a god.

To become a god, and then to take his revenge on Squall.

* * *

-

Time passed and he paid it no heed, because what was time? Aboveground became an increasingly more desolate place to be, but down here things were very much the same as they had been when he'd arrived. The years had changed him, built him up—he was taller now, well-built, unafraid of death and of killing. Work was still work, but it no longer bothered him; at the end of the day, as he gambled away the worthless munny of worlds demolished in smoky underworld bars, he had no regrets. Winnings were left scattered across tables for lesser monsters to scramble for, because he didn't need them, because cash was so easy to come by in his line of work that it was laughable.

That was what he'd done tonight as well, as he left for home. And Sephiroth was waiting for him when he got there, which was unusual, as the man usually had business to attend to. He thought little of it when gloved hands found his sides and the katana at his hip was pulled away, thought even less when smirking lips caught his own and the hands slid up his shirt. He ceased to think entirely when their daily gear was shed, trench coat slipping away and baring a shoulder to his roaming mouth, straps and belts undone, his shirt tangled around his wrists before he let it fall carelessly. He ran his freed hands appreciatively over the taller man's chest as the rest of their clothes were tugged away, and allowed himself to fall headlong into a haze of lust.

It was nothing they hadn't done before, but there was something about Sephiroth that would never cease to amaze him. Yes, the man was gorgeous. Flawless, even. Spotless, milky skin stretched over a muscular but deceptively lean physique, the cascade of silver hair, handsome features with unforgiving eyes. But what he admired most was that ability to forever and always be in charge, no matter what the situation. Even if he could dominate the man in bed—if he could ever dare to try—he knew beyond a doubt that somehow, some way, Sephiroth would still control the encounter to his every whim.

The only moment it faltered was when he came, the most unbearably delicious of noises slipping past his lips, his body betraying him as his composure staggered. All of those things happened because he allowed them to; even then, those things were still within his control. What was unintentional, however, was that faint but distinct feeling that he was relinquishing power, if only for a moment—that he knew it was not entirely his doing and that he could find no way to dispute it. It drove Cloud wild, knowing that for just one moment, he had corralled this amazing creature—this _god_. The knowledge of it licked across his skin like cold fire, piercing and destructive. And then when it was gone, he _wanted_. He wanted to feel it again, that entirely unique sensation of taming the fiercest of demons, of controlling the uncontrollable. He wanted, with a ferocity that turned his soul a solid black, to surpass this animal and trample it beneath him.

He knew Sephiroth knew... the man always knew. But he didn't seem to mind, always just smirked lazily as though Cloud was playing right into his hands and would stay until the younger man fell asleep. And Cloud would be left to wonder, as he drifted off, what the silver-haired man knew that he didn't.

Tonight was different, though. As he curled against the now well-warmed sheets, he felt Sephiroth get up and heard him pad quietly from the room. He heard the footsteps return, felt the mattress dip as the other took a seat on the bed. Cloud opened his eyes to meet the impassive gaze directed at him, and pulled himself up unhurriedly, allowing the blankets to pool around his hips. Sephiroth had something in his hands, a long, rectangular mass of gauze. "I believe this belongs to you."

Cloud accepted the cumbersome... thing. It was extremely heavy, enough so for the weight to be noticeable even to him, but he had no idea what it might be. Anyone else might have asked, rhetorically at least, or expressed some amount of curiosity, but he merely began to unravel the white cloth in silence. A glint of metal caught his eye and his pale eyebrows furrowed.

"Do you recall?" Sephiroth asked him softly.

The cloth fell off in strips until he had revealed a solid block of steel, sharpened on one edge and still sparsely bandaged. "No?" He did not recognize it until it was fully unveiled, an oversized broadsword that had seemed so much larger when he was thirteen. Cloud winced as something flashed behind his eyes, something sharp and menacing, something that Sephiroth had protected him from all these years—something that had been allowed to reach him for the first time. It was overpowering, blinding, and he reeled, tearing his eyes away from the buster sword and instinctively seeking out the comfort of his katana. Sephiroth had brought that for him, too.

"Your weapon from before," the silver-haired man said, his voice a mixture of amusement and contempt as he eyed the Buster sword. "Such a worthless thing... but I believe it is your choice, whichever you would prefer." When Cloud's eyes slid immediately to the thinner, more eloquent sword on the bedside table, Sephiroth smirked. Leaning the broadsword against the wall, he trailed his fingertips down the side of Cloud's face. "You are wise, to choose the present over the past."

Cloud shrugged nonchalantly. "I am what you made me."

"And I have made you perfect."

The words were breathed against his lips, and the blond swordsman felt the memory of that strange, abrupt pain begin to weaken around the edges. "Why today?" he asked, as he settled back into bed, and Sephiroth paused in the doorway.

"You are 18 today. It seemed appropriate."

"...Oh," Cloud murmured, as the door clicked shut.

_Happy birthday_, he thought wryly to himself. When Sephiroth had rescued him, he'd been... 13? The older man had said so once. That made five missed birthdays. He couldn't remember what his birthdays had been like before he'd come here. Parties? Cake? He couldn't even remember the taste of upperworld cake, his mind supplying the memory of only moistureless, ash-flavoured underworld food.

There was very little he remembered about 'before.' He knew that there had been a great battle and that his world had been overtaken by heartless. But he remembered it as he remembered being born—with notions conceived from knowledge of the event, but with no actual recollection of it. He knew that a close friend had betrayed him—a friend whose name escaped him now because it was inconsequential. That friend was nothing compared to what he was now: a demi-god, a one-winged angel from hell, Sephiroth's hand-picked successor. He remembered a face—blue eyes, attractive features, scowling lips—and that was enough. He would find that face, and he would slaughter its owner.

* * *

-

The sword gathered dust in the corner of his room, an increasingly intimidating _thing_ that he could not bear to look at. It seemed to stare him down if he tried, sending a chill down his spine, and he would be unable to return that stare. Unnerved, he would look away, each time increasingly aware that he was allowing an inanimate object to get the better of him.

It was watching him. It was judging him. And if thought about it long enough, things would start to happen. A searing _something_ would begin to gnaw away at the edges of his mind, scrabbling at his nerves and tearing him down and trying to eat him alive. It was enough to keep him away, usually, but today he confronted it. Wrenching his gaze from the hardwood beneath his feet, he glared fiercely at the sword that stood in the corner, mocking him, laughing at him.

The soundless laughter penetrated his skull with the force of a sledgehammer and his head began to throb fiercely, vision fogging and then going white at uneven intervals and it _hurt_ and he couldn't think straight and the only thought he could see through was the conviction that he had to get rid of the sword. He could hear the laugh now—fuck, he was going insane—and it was frighteningly familiar. It was a soft, jovial chuckle that sounded somewhere in his mind but across a barrier that he did not remember erecting—a line that he had not crossed in years. It was within him, but so far away from him, a part of him he had completely forsaken.

_Laughter. Violet eyes. A mess of black spikes that his own hair—to this day—is modeled after. A gorgeous smile and a warm, sincerely friendly voice. "Hey, there."_

The memory struck him like a kick in the gut and he doubled over, exertion screaming in his skull as he clutched his head. It hurt, it hurt, it _hurt_—

_The sword he's admired for years, its hilt pressed against his trembling hands._

_"Zack wanted you to have this."_

—it stopped. He sat up shakily and looked up at the sword. The sword looked back at him. Zack's sword. Zack Fair. Zack had liked puppies and had had the attention span of one. He'd been prone to telling long stories that were supposed to have morals but never quite worked out because he would mess them up. He'd gone away to join the army. He'd been shot to death in the war, and he'd left him this sword.

Cloud raised a hand tentatively and grasped the hilt. It seemed smaller than he remembered and, when he lifted the sword, it was a much easier task than it had once been. It was foreign to him, a weapon meant to be used for good—a sword meant to protect, unlike the katana at his hip that was meant only to kill. And that was when it struck him: everything he'd done these past six years—the life he'd come to take for granted—the life he'd come to _enjoy… _

Zack wouldn't have wanted this.

* * *

-

The memories that came during the next year were sparse. They had provided him with few facts, few solid truths, but nonetheless they had swayed him. The sense of morality that had forsaken him so many years ago returned, faint though it was, more of a distaste for what he did during the day than a conviction that there was something wrong with it. And with his aversion to destruction came the knowledge that, once upon a time, he had not been the type of person that would commit such atrocities.

He could not remember the self-righteous feeling that had once come with them, but he remembered words that had once meant something to him: honor, justice, ethics, honesty. He remembered how appalled he had once been to kill, realized how horrified his young self would've been to see what he had become. He was not a god. He was a monster. And Sephiroth had made him this way.

That thought festered on his mind, gaining momentum as it grew into something as hideous as the wing on his back, yet another testament to the other man's ability to fill him with enough spite to kill. And he did kill, the anger manifesting itself in the almost ceremonial slide of his blade between Sephiroth's ribs.

There was right and there was wrong and this was _wrong_. The deepest circle of Hell awaited men who betrayed their benefactors—he had walked the frozen surface of Cocytus and watched the faces plastered underneath the ice contort in agony; they had haunted his dreams for months when he'd first seen them. In an attempt to make up for his previous sins, he'd added to them the greatest sin of all.

But Sephiroth had said… Sephiroth had told him to redefine morality. And he had done so. For him, he had redefined it and taken lives without question—but it ended here, now, as he wound up all of his courage and struck. The cursed _humanity_ that drove him to escape Sephiroth and the sins he represented was the same humanity that drove him to regret the act, the rage diluting with horror and fear. Even as the silver-haired man drew in strangled breaths against the blood filling his lungs, he cradled Sephiroth's head in his lap, his wing caressing the other's. And so it was that a god died like a man, emerald eyes glazing over, flesh going cold as ice, and Cloud felt for the first time in his life like a murderer.

He fled, leaving behind the blood-stained katana that had slain his master and taking up the broadsword that had allowed him to do it. It was both right and wrong at the same time, the gravest of sins and the most righteous of victories—he had betrayed a god and felled a demon. He had… he was a monster.

He heard the whispers in the weeks—and then the months—that passed. _Sephiroth is gone. He killed him. The kid with the wing—see? His successor. Betrayed him. Killed him. He's gone._

The wing branded him. Everywhere he went, he was Sephiroth's apprentice-gone-wrong. Bars fell silent when he stepped inside. Even monsters—his fellow monsters—gave him a wide berth. Everywhere he went, he was alone with the sword that sat strapped to his back like some trophy. _I killed Sephiroth. I renounced my evil ways, and that makes me better than you._

That wasn't what he'd meant by it—that wasn't what he'd meant at all. But no one cared what he'd meant. No one saw him as anything other than an ungrateful murderer, except for his new traveling companion, a mutt he'd picked up along the way. The puppy had three heads—no doubt sired by Cerberus—and followed him everywhere, sleek black fur and piercing gaze belied by wobbly legs and a bouncy gait. He called it Zack.

Zack was at his side when he found himself in front of the towering palace and when he ascended the tall, dark steps. They met Hades face to face for the first time that day, and even the god of the underworld looked taken aback at the sight of the trademark wing folded behind him. But Hades heard him out and offered him a deal. And since he had no other leads, he took this one, agreeing to kill a certain Hercules in exchange for help finding the man who, alongside Sephiroth, haunted his dreams.

He learned of a world—Traverse Town—where he'd find his adversary and a tournament—the Phil cup—where he would fulfill his end of the bargain. But the contract was delayed when personal matters arose. The first sign was the cringing feeling in his gut that something was _wrong_. The presence lurking in all corners of the underworld was unmistakable, but he wrote it off as paranoia. He shouldn't have.

The second sign was much more blatant and entirely more costly. He returned home to empty rooms and an unsettled feeling in his gut, eyes narrowing against the darkness at the distinct feeling that he was alone. He caught a familiar scent just as something squelched under his boot, and he followed the blood trail out back where he found Zack lying motionless in a pool of stagnant red. Floating in his companion's stolen lifeblood, mocking him, was a single black feather.

The challenge was issued, and he pursued. The contract was forgotten.

* * *

-

The footsteps were slow at first, tentative and uneven as he found his bearings and started in the direction of the… it wasn't really, was it? His dragging footsteps grew firmer, the echoing pace of his footfall steadying as he became confident in his observation and the doorway grew ever nearer. It was, wasn't it?

He approached it cautiously, the surreal glow of—of… was it? It was foreign, the soft, pale _not-blackness_ of the semicircle cast at the base of the arching doorway, something he hadn't seen in… how long had it been? Nine years, Sephiroth had said. But Sephiroth had said a lot of things.

"_You're going to kill me?" The One-Winged Angel echoes, with a low chuckle that smothers his senses and turns the air around them to pure electricity. "Aren't you beautifully desensitized?"_

_He grits his teeth as their blades lock. "That's what happens when things you kill _come back_."_

_And Sephiroth replies with a gentle, cryptic smile, the glint in his glowing emerald eyes so mocking that Cloud can issue only a feral, wordless growl in response, in warning. That look of sickeningly amused omniscience is still there as he hangs in the air, unresisting, as Buster impales him 15 consecutive times—as Cloud kills him fifteen times over—kills him for a second time. "Beautiful," he whispers, back arched in silent agony as he remains effortlessly suspended, countless wings wilted at his sides. "Beautiful, pathetic puppet." His voice is almost affectionate—a mockery of affection that only Cloud will ever understand the weight of—as the blackness around them absorbs him and he ceases to be._

Sephiroth had said a lot of things. Sephiroth had been a lot of things, and would be again, soon. But for the time being, he was gone, and _he_ was free. And with Sephiroth gone, there was only one thing he could remember ever pursuing.

He stepped into the light.

--

* * *

**A/N: **This is an insert that was done specifically for Wasted Metaphor's revamp, so I started from scratch and all.

There are a lot of very vague notions about Cloud during those nine years—something about sins to atone for and Sephiroth being his darkness. I haven't seen any serious speculation on the fandom's part, and I figured my own thoughts would be appropriate for this arc. I see Cloud being drawn to the power and invulnerability that Sephiroth represents, and Seph wanting to exploit the boy's potential and misplaced trust. It is only in cold blood that Cloud is able to defeat him—and at the same time, that cold-bloodedness increases Sephiroth's hold on him. Sephiroth becomes both a symbol of his crimes and a physical manifestation of his darker inclinations, and it is not until Cloud overcomes these that he will be able to defeat the one-winged angel once and for all.

/rant

Hope you liked! Please review :33


	6. Unfamiliar

**VI. Unfamiliar**

He was a warrior, through and through, if nothing else. His clothes were dark, fit for and worn from combat, and at his side was a large, bandaged sword. The lower half of his face was hidden in the folds of a red cape that flowed over his shoulders, revealing turquoise eyes that peered out from behind the prison bars of messy blond spikes. The thick crimson material concealed most of his form and fell tattered around his legs, but even that didn't fully hide the tell-tale mutation on his back that revealed tantalizing glimpses into his dark past: a tall, black wing. Unlike its counterpart—a mockery of an angel wing, made of silky blue-black feathers—this man's wing was leathery, giving no observer delusions as to his past affiliations.

The man had no name. No memories, no soul, no conscience. All of those things had been lost along the way, forsaken in favor of things more important, like his life. Now he was just a wanderer, a survivor, with only one thing left in this world—and the next, for that matter. He had once been a mercenary, bringing about the ends of petty rivalries and entire worlds, but there was no commission on his final target.

He didn't remember the target's name, but he remembered the face that had haunted him all these years. All of his memories had grown dim as he'd slowly fed his sanity to the darkness as rent, save for that face. The face of the one who had betrayed him and left him to die so many years ago on the streets of Radiant Garden. He'd been 13 years old at the time—at least, that was how the story went. There was no way to be sure of how long it had really been, save for the words of a madman for whom reality was subjective and truth was a malleable concept. There was no way to be sure how long it had really been, but he didn't need to wonder how many years had slipped past him while he'd walked the darkness—first with his master, then alone. However long it had been, it was a retrospective eternity to him.

He remembered nothing except two faces—both so deceptively admirable—and vaguities of his time below ground. He didn't remember this place, but for all he knew, he could've been born and raised here. Then again, for all he knew, he could've been born and raised in the Hell that had spat him out to find the nameless man he now hunted.

He paused as he heard footsteps approaching, someone moving quickly towards him—female, he inferred from the strides—obviously making no effort to conceal her presence. He detected no threat but stood his ground, waiting for another to appear, prepared to strike if need be. Something plummeted down from the rooftop, landing squarely on the pavement. It was a person. A ninja.

The young girl stood and, brushing herself off, scampered towards him. "Hey there!" She called, "You new around here?" At a glance she seemed completely careless, oblivious to the potential threat presented by an armed stranger. But upon closer inspection, she was spinning a large shuriken in her right hand, drawing attention to it in a subtle but confident hint that she was not one to be messed with. When there was no reply, she continued cheerily, "I'm the great ninja Yuffie!" There was a pause, in which the man probably should have replied, but didn't. "Sooo!" She drew out the word. "Who are you?"

"I'm nobody," the blond swordsman replied sternly. "I'm looking for someone."

Yuffie cocked her head. "Nobody, hmm?" She asked thoughtfully, as though she might have, in fact, been acquainted with a Mr. Nobody at some point. "And you're looking for someone…" she mulled this over for a few long moments. "I'll help you out," she decided brightly. There was no response. "Well," she continued, "I was just gunna go buy some potions before the store closed, so you can come with and tell me about this _someone_." She grinned widely. "I know everyone in Traverse Town, so if they're here, I can find 'em for ya!"

"Fine," the stranger replied at length, following her as she turned away, prancing down the streets. His eyes appeared to be brightening in the dimming light until they were visibly glowing. He followed in silence, keeping a few paces behind her, his hand never leaving the hilt of his sword.

"So, what world are you from?" Yuffie was asking now, as they made their way to the items shop down the street.

"I don't remember."

"Ehh!?" The girl's jaw fell open. "Why not?"

"I lost my memories," he confessed shortly, giving the details a wide berth. "I don't remember anything except the face of the man I'm here to kill."

Yuffie frowned. "You shouldn't kill people. If you don't mind my saying, Mister." The air seemed to grow cold around them, and she shivered as the stranger gave her a small, mirthless smile.

"You shouldn't feed your friend to the heartless, either."

She had nothing to say to that. She fell silent as they entered the item shop, and he stepped in behind her, instinctively noting the location and distance of both exits as he let the door close behind him. He watched in silence as she traded munny for a bag of potions with an older blond behind the counter.

"Who's yer friend?" The man asked as he handed over the items, gesturing at the newcomer.

The spiky-haired swordsman stood in silence, expecting Yuffie to answer for him, but she did nothing to come to his aid, and the man behind the counter wasn't about to let go.

"Well?"

"I'm nobody."

The older man chuckled. "Like hell you are. I'm Cid. Give me a holler if you need anything—and dammit, would it kill you to smile a bit?"

"It might." That might've been perceived as a joke, if he hadn't been glaring so venomously.

"He's new!" Yuffie chirped happily, coming to his defense at last, "Just blew in today!" She clapped her hands together before furrowing her eyebrows as though in thought. The item shop was silent for several moments before she erupted with: "Oh, yeah! He lost all of his memories and he's looking for someone!"

"Who?" Cid asked.

"Uhm... hmm... uh, 'someone'," the brunette replied, grinning triumphantly before turning to the wanderer. "Who was it, again?"

"I don't know his name," the swordsman muttered. "But he's here. I'll know him when I see him."

Yuffie hesitated, wringing her hands with uncharacteristic anxiety before she said grudgingly, "I can't let you kill anyone in our town."

Cid's eyebrows shot up. "You're here to kill some'n?"

The swordsman leveled his gaze on the other. "No one will interfere," he stated flatly, and it wasn't a threat, only a fact. Nothing here could stand in his way. Even death hadn't been able to stop him.

The young brunette looked a bit startled at that, but composed herself quickly, maintaining her trademark cheer. "Can you tell us what he looks like?"

He knew every line of those features, could sculpt that face if his hands would only cooperate, but there were no words to describe that so he settled for what could be relayed through words. "Brown hair." _The color of chocolate_, something inside him added quietly. "Blue eyes." _Like the sky_. He paused, trying to remember something else—something, anything that would still be the same, even after all these years. His lips curled in self-satisfaction when it came to him on command. "Wears a chain with a pendant shaped like a lion's head."

"Leon!?" Yuffie practically yelled. It was silent for some time, before Cid finally muttered, "Well, shit."

"Does he have a scar that goes like _this_?" The kunoichi asked keenly, drawing a slanted line between her eyes with a finger.

The swordsman shrugged his armored shoulders. "Not that I remember."

"When's the last time you saw 'im?" Cid questioned.

The younger man narrowed his eyes darkly. "When my home world was eaten by heartless," he spat. "Where is he?"

Yuffie was fretting, gnawing on her lip and fidgeting as she apparently tried to think of a way to deter him, but the older blond sat calmly behind the counter, watching the stranger with silent intrigue. "Hm." There was a long, thoughtful pause as Cid rubbed his chin. "Is your name… Cloud?"

The swordsman's glowing eyes widened as that name met his ears. A jolt of electricity seemed to shoot through his veins, paralyzing his entire body. It sounded so completely foreign, but he could feel snippets of memories teasing the edges of his mind. The sound filled him, skipping like a broken record as a thousand different voices spoke his name and meshed into solid white noise.

_Cloud? Do you—_

_Hey, Cloud._

_Cloud!_

_...Cloud Strife..._

He brought up his clawed hand instinctively to clutch his head before lowering it hastily, turning his eyes up to meet the older man's. "Cloud Strife," he confirmed, that name completely alien on his lips, yet hauntingly familiar at the same time. "How did you know?"

"You're the one Leon left behind, that day nine years ago," Cid answered grimly. "Kid kept yelling fer us to go back an' get you."

"You can't kill Leon," Yuffie stammered finally, attempting to contribute to the conversation. "He's our leader, we need him."

"Him?" Cloud released a bark of laughter. "A leader?" He couldn't remember anything about this _Leon_. The name should've helped, but it rang no bells in his mind. He still had nothing but a face, while his other memories slowly filtered back.

"You can't do anything to him!" The young brunette insisted. "I... I won't let you!" But for reasons she couldn't fathom, Cid shot her a very pointed look.

"Yuffie, go get Leon. Tell 'im what's goin' on. Tell 'im ter come meet Cloud outside."

"But—"

"For the love of Kjata, get on with it! I'm closin' up fer the night!" And with that he shooed her out.

Cloud exited silently, leaning against the sturdy brick wall of the items shop as rain began to drizzle over the darkening streets of Traverse Town. He glared at the sky, as though that would make it stop, and pulled the cape tighter around him. It was growing rapidly cold and wet, and he found himself terribly impatient. The murder he'd trained nine years to commit was within his grasp, and suddenly he was almost doubting his ability to execute it. What if Leon wasn't at all what he thought the man was? What if his memories had led him astray?

What if this was all wrong?

He forced those thoughts away, but they kept returning and he had no idea why. He'd never felt regrets about killing anyone before—at least, not for many, many years. Not since before he could remember. After he'd walked straight into Hell, he'd learned how to cope. He'd become too accustomed to the dark realm's kill-or-be-killed policy. In the darkness, there was no choice. To survive, he killed anything that was a threat to his existence. Anything that had ever wronged him. But here... here, things were different.

Here, if he killed Leon, he wouldn't be securing his place in any hierarchy. He wouldn't be eliminating a threat to anything. He wouldn't even be doing it for money. He'd just be a murderer.

No, he told himself. He would be a murderer with peace of mind at last. Once he killed Leon, he could retreat to the darkness, and hand himself over to the dark abyss he'd once feared. Once he killed the one who had condemned him to nine years in Hell, he could finally be at peace.

But what if...

He tried to shake those thoughts off, but he couldn't fight the now growing suspicion that maybe—just maybe—he'd gotten something wrong. How could he have been wrong for nine years, without ever suspecting it? Leon had left him to die. Leon had fed him alive to the heartless. There was no way to justify that.... Was there? What if he remembered something—something that could justify it? Would he still kill Leon, just because he'd come this far and couldn't turn back now?

Cloud's grip tightened on the hilt of the Buster sword as someone stepped out of a thin alley, their eyes meeting across the darkened street. For a moment he almost forgot to breathe—almost stared at what had become of the boy he'd known as Squall.

The older man's eyes had lost their youth and luster, reduced to a colorless gray that burned into him, cold and lifeless. And there was a scar marring his once-perfect face, an angry red line carved between his eyes. This was what he'd spent the past nine years searching for. This was the man he'd survived to kill. This was the reason he'd spent nine years in the darkness. To hunt down this man and destroy him.

"What happened to you, _Leon?_" He spat the name he'd been told belonged to this man. "You look like you've been to Hell and back." He let out a mirthless laugh, eyeing the silent brunet with a gaze that could kill. "Funny. I didn't see you there."

"Cloud..." Leon's voice was hoarse as he spoke the name he hadn't in years.

The blond's eyes narrowed at that. It didn't feel right having a name associated with himself. It felt like a constraint. He could almost feel it physically fettering him as he stood there. He had _had_ no name in the underworld. He had just been _him_. Yet at the same time, it was all familiar, in a distant sort of way. He could feel human memories tugging at his mind, and forced them away. He'd come this far without remembering; he didn't need to start now. He'd been to Hell and back for the solitary purpose of annihilating this man. He never declined a challenge... and he had issued this one himself, for himself.

"Maybe you've forgotten feeding me to the heartless, but I didn't spend nine years in hell to see that go unpunished."

"...I never forgot," the brunet muttered, looking away. But if Cloud heard it, he didn't acknowledge it. When the blond didn't speak, he asked, "Where have you been?"

"In Hell," the younger man snarled, but that reply was completely honest. He gave the buster a spin, thrusting it out in front of him with a growl that sounded anything but human. He was getting impatient with the other man's refusal to humor him. "Let's spar."

"Here?" Leon asked, but he seemed distracted. That wouldn't do. He wanted the brunet's full attention as he killed him.

"Here," Cloud confirmed, an expression of sheer animal rage crossing his once-innocent features. "To the death." He could see something in the taller man's eyes now, something that could only be described as sadness. And although he couldn't fathom why, it hurt him to see that.

"You want to kill me—" Leon cut himself off. "You want to kill Squall," he corrected.

As those words were spoken, something inside of him understood, and Cloud agreed quietly, "Yeah." He had no way of knowing that, in a way, he had already done that. It had killed Leon figuratively to leave him behind, and the brunet had fashioned himself into a completely separate person. But Leon or not, he was responsible for Squall's actions. There was no one else he could send Cloud to, no one else he could turn the blame on.

"If you're here to punish Squall, I accept."

For the first time since resurfacing from the darkness, Cloud felt the need to ask a question; one that couldn't go unanswered. "What are you?"

Their eyes locked, slate gray and turquoise seeking each other for answers, and Leon replied, "I'm what's left."

There was a long silence, no sound between them but the dripping of rain against the pavement. And then:

"I see."

Tension shuddered between them, their eyes never breaking contact as Leon pulled his gunblade from its holster, readying it for battle. Cloud darted forward with inhuman speed, bringing the buster down on the other, who met the blow with no show of exertion. He gave a low growl, teeth bared as he swung the heavy sword around with ease, forcing the other to retreat. The quicker he killed _Squall_, the better. He found no satisfaction in the idea of dragging it out. They continued that way, with Cloud on the offensive. Leon was fighting back, but only just. He hesitated for a moment, stepping back as the brunet's gray eyes watched him with hollow amusement.

"I thought you were going to kill me."

Cloud's eyes narrowed dangerously and he brought the buster back up. When Leon only blocked his blow half-heartedly, he darted forward, slamming the flat of the blade into the other's chest and plowing him back into the wall. There was a crack as the buster met his ribcage and the brunet winced in pain, but he made no move to retaliate. With a growl of frustration, Cloud took a handful of his opponent's shirt, throwing him aside onto the pavement. Water splashed up around the brunet as he delivered a merciless kick to his gut. "Fight back," he snarled. "I spent nine years training for this."

Leon stood, a small smirk on his lips. "No."

Cloud struck out again, shoving the other across the alley with his sword. The brunet's back collided with the wall behind him but he recovered quickly, supporting his weight against it. "Afraid that I'll kill you even if you try?" When there was no response, Cloud gave a bitter laugh. "You don't deserve to be alive."

"I don't," the other man agreed, his eyes fixed on the pavement below their feet. "But I don't deserve to die, either."

Cloud pulled his opponent away from the wall, holding him in place as he plowed a fist straight into his face. "Shut up."

Leon staggered, clutching his nose as blood dripped over his fingers. "I'm sorry," he gritted out.

"A bit late for apologies, isn't it?" Cloud snapped, as he knocked the gunblade out of the other's hand.

"No." The brunet's eyebrows furrowed. "I'm sorry you've become such a monster."

A growl of rage passed the blond's lips and he slammed the buster into the other man, sending him sprawling across the pavement. The brunet curled on his side but Cloud kicked him over, crouching over him. "You made me what I am."

Leon shook his head. "I didn't want to leave you behind. You know that. You didn't become this because you wanted revenge."

Cloud's lip curled, and he grabbed hold of the other's fur collar, shaking him roughly. "Of course I wanted revenge! You left me to _die_."

"You never realized it, did you? You didn't survive to kill me," Leon said, with a smirk now. A man who wanted him dead had him unarmed and cornered, and he was smirking. "You survived because you were afraid to die. I'm not the only coward here."

Cloud drew back like he'd been burned, hands clenching into fists. He stood angrily, grabbing hold of his cape. "Cowardice doesn't make monsters," he growled, his voice taking on an inhuman undertone that seemed to rumble over the alley, and he tore off the cape, revealing the black wing that he had tucked away in its folds. "You think _this_ is a result of cowardice?" He demanded, stretching the wing at his side.

Leon's eyes widened and he sat up, staring at the leathery appendage stretching out from behind the younger man. "Cloud..." he breathed, looking more not disgusted or frightened but... betrayed? Raising a hand to his temples, he averted his gaze. "What did you do?" He asked.

"And you thought you knew what it meant to become a monster," the blond said darkly, smirking with a twisted satisfaction. "Did you think I survived because I got _lucky_? I survived because I fought demons tooth and nail until I found the right guy to sell my fucking soul to become one of them." There was a long silence. Then, to his surprise, the brunet stood, spinning the gunblade decisively.

"I'll fight."

Cloud watched him in silence for a few moments before his lips parted in a feral grin. "Wonderful." Their eyes met and something in his chest unwillingly sunk. There was a time fighting Squall had been fun. He gritted his teeth against those memories as they dove forward, steel clashing upon steel as the met each other's blows with force. They swung and parried, blades meeting in a lethal dance as they darted down the alley and out into the deserted streets. It was exhilarating, and he lost himself in the passion of their battle, the surge of conflicting emotions passing effortlessly between them as they attacked methodically. There was a time he would've given anything to fight Squall as an equal.

_He attacks relentlessly, swinging as quickly and fiercely as the weight of his sword will allow, and each of his powerful blows is countered with calculated precision. Their eyes meet with the same intensity as their swords, and he swears that electricity crackles between them._

Now he was just angry and lost, trying to kill the man he wanted to blame for his suffering before he remembered how much they'd meant to each other at one time. It didn't matter. A friendship that had failed in the face of danger couldn't possibly mean anything to him any longer.

_Squall yells hoarsely for them to wait, but he's drowned out by the heartless. He sees the desperation flash in his friend's eyes, knows that all is lost in that moment as the older boy thrusts him aside and flees in the direction of the ship. As he turns, their eyes meet for a brief moment, turquoise upon blue-gray, a moment that will haunt him for years to come._

"_Wait--! Squall!"_

Cloud's eyes widened when he found himself pinned to a rain-slicked brick wall, pushing out against the other with the flat of his sword. The memories were distracting him, but they wouldn't stop coming at him.

_He tackles Squall, grabbing a hold of the other and kicking off of the wall to propel them forward. The taller boy gives a grunt of pain as his back collides with the ground, his gunblade slipping past his fingers and spinning out across the floor._

He instinctively raised a hand to his head as the memories returned to him, completely unwarranted. He didn't know how long they'd been fighting, but it was dark now, save for the occasional street lamp. He didn't want to remember, not now. He could remember later and regret this decision if he had to. Squall couldn't get out of this alive. Squall couldn't—Squall wouldn't survive this.

But even as he told himself that, his resolve was crumbling. His memories were betraying him, filling him with apprehension and doubt and fear, along with everything else he hadn't felt for nine years. The feelings of warmth and happiness teased the edges of his brain, completely foreign to him. Leon was watching him, eyes narrowed and calculating, lips parted in an almost lupine show of aggression. His face was streaked with blood, but he didn't seem to notice. Never once letting his guard down, he waited patiently for the blond to catch his breath.

"Come on," Cloud gritted out, knowing that he'd already failed. He was ready to collapse, not from the physical exertion but the mental strain. Something in him was already turning human, and much too quickly. Something in him would rather die than take another life, would rather surrender now than lay a hand on Leon. He threw himself forward recklessly, knowing the blow would never land. He tumbled soundlessly to the ground as the buster tore itself from his hands upon impact, the sound of metal on cement exploding down the street as it landed several yards away. It was nothing he couldn't recover from, but he made no effort to stand, staring up at the sky.

_How...?_ He wondered, as the devil wing curled beside him in the dirty rainwater. The stars above him seemed to mock him, drawing the line between the dark realm he'd become accustomed to and this... this new reality that had a whole different set of rules. A world where his skill with a sword couldn't hide the scarring. A place where being physically capable of executing his revenge wouldn't necessarily make it possible. A place where two wrongs didn't make a right, and problems couldn't always be solved by killing the perpetrator. As he lay there, he was crushed by the realization that he had to start over yet again. Hauling himself to the feet, he started slowly down the sidewalk.

"Cloud?" the older man's voice sounded behind him.

"Never mind," he said shortly, replacing the sword on his back, knowing that the brunet would understand. _I give up._

"Don't..." Leon hesitated, tried again. "Come back with me."

"You'll take care of me, will you?" Cloud said sardonically. But despite his words, he knew Squall had done more for him than he was willing to admit, and he knew that if anyone could help him now, it was Leon. So despite his words, he turned, accepting the elixir in the older man's outstretched hand. "Fine."

Uncorking the bottle, he drained the bitter liquid into his mouth. Leon was watching him closely, and he couldn't suppress the smug grin that crossed his increasingly human face. It would be a long time, if ever, before things were normal between them. He knew that. He wasn't even sure if, in the long run, they'd be able to put up with each other. Maybe there was just too much guilt, too many bad memories, too many skeletons in their respective closets. But it wasn't all bad—he knew that now. So maybe—just maybe—they could make things right.

He, for one, was willing to try.

--

* * *

**A/N:** This was called "Run For Your Life" the first time around. I just rewrote this over the summer, so I didn't do much editing this time around. I might later, since some parts are bugging me. XD Hope you enjoyed it!


	7. Instructions Will Repeat

**VII. Instructions Will Repeat**

If people had told him last year that he'd be friends with Leon—the man whose face haunted his waking nightmares—he would have called them insane. But then, if someone had told him 10 years ago that he would spend several years with every intention of killing Squall—the boy with whom he was completely enamored—he would've said the same thing. So, in a way, it wasn't so insane. Or the insanity balanced out. Or, at very least, he should have been used to it by now.

Cloud had changed drastically in his few weeks aboveground. Since his battle with Leon, he'd been subdued, stunned by the realization of the extent to which Sephiroth had manipulated him. All along, he'd been convinced that Squall—_Leon_—was the villain, when really…

It made his blood curdle, to think of how thoroughly he had trusted the silver-haired man, of how thoroughly that trust had been exploited, and of the things he'd done for Sephiroth out of misplaced reverence. And at the same time, it was far worse knowing that his anger was only further evidence of Sephiroth's control over him; even from beyond the grave, that man could dictate his thoughts. It was infuriating, but he couldn't allow himself to be infuriated, so he turned inward.

Introspection was something Leon taught him, in his own way. Yes, Leon would spar with him and let him release his fury in the vicious brutality of the fight, but he would also sit beside him on the steps as they drank potions in silence and then lapsed into thought. They would sit together—at first yards apart, but within weeks shoulder-to-shoulder—staring aimlessly at the empty flasks in their hands as their minds whirled at a mile a minute. And then he would look over and Leon would avert his eyes with a quiet sigh, and Cloud would know that they were thinking about the same thing.

The way they dwelled on the past—now that Cloud could remember much of it—made moving on seem doubtful. There was a place in Cloud's mind where Squall was still responsible for everything that had happened. He knew this just as he knew how ridiculous it was.

But somehow, despite what went on in their respective skulls, a part of them had been all too willing to start over. It would have been easier for him to befriend Aerith, the kind flower girl, or even Yuffie, the bouncy kunoichi, because at least he'd never tried to kill them and they'd never left him to die. But there was a part of him that wanted to latch onto Leon and never let go, because there was something there.

Aerith's heart was invulnerable to darkness, and Yuffie lived on the stubborn faith that good would always prevail. But Leon knew what it was to be lost in the darkness, what it meant to lose sight of all that was good. While Leon was far ahead of him in terms of rebuilding himself, there was no doubt that the brunet was still searching, still incomplete, as he fled the darkness that still dogged his steps. He was walking where Leon once had, and if only he could catch up with the older man, he wondered if—between the two of them—they wouldn't be able to find the light again.

On top if it all, he had known Squall before he'd known Sephiroth. Leon remembered who he'd been _before_, and maybe the older man would be willing to help him reconcile with it.

With recovering his former self, however, came its problems. One of the things he'd been before was very infatuated with Squall. While he didn't turn into a blushing idiot around Leon, it was still disconcerting that he sometimes really, _really_ wanted to kiss the scowl off of his plush lips. It was…an inconvenience, wanting to trace with a finger the scar between his eyes, to trail his own lips over the brunet's set jaw and down over the visible tendons in his neck, to run his tongue along the jut of the older man's clavicles.

It was just another thing he had to repress, the urge to know what it would take to make the older man moan, purr, _scream_. Much like when they'd been kids, he told himself that Leon was unavailable—that he was not interested and that his friendship was not worth a whimsical fling. But that didn't mean he couldn't fantasize. So it festered in the back of his mind, secondary because he had more important things to work through with Leon first, but constant.

* * *

-

Leon had never entertained the thought of meeting Cloud again. And, even if he had, never in a million years would he have expected the younger man to forgive him for what he'd done. He had never in his life been so foolish as to be an optimist, but the past weeks had yielded surprising results. The snarling animal dead set on tearing him limb from limb sublimated before his eyes and he found himself in the company of a man who was....

There was no single word to describe what Cloud became after that fight, except for maybe "contradictory." He was broken and yet composed, resigned but seething, quiet but fierce, vengeful but forgiving. It floored him, the carefully crafted network—the horrifically tangled _mess_—of the blond's personality as it was revealed to him piece by piece.

In his effort to understand, he analyzed, because rationality had never failed him before. He cut Cloud into a thousand symmetrical segments in his brain and separated them into oversimplified categories. But somehow, the picture was always incomplete.

There were those pieces that refused to cooperate—pieces that became distorted when he tried to isolate them so that he could never know what they were or where to put them. And no matter how much time he spent chasing them, it was always in vain. It was only when Leon stepped back, exasperated with his inability to decrypt Cloud and prepared to admit defeat, that he was finally able to understand what he was up against.

Analysis wilted in the face of intuition, a side of learning he hadn't dared to court in years. But it embraced him, so tightly that he could only cling back as it hurled him bodily into the light and allowed him—_forced_ him—to see. And that was when it struck him, a sense of disillusionment that threw his precious rationality into chaos and made him want to scream in denial. Denial, not of what he felt, but of the fact that he was wrong and that he had possibly _been_ wrong for a very long time.

The Cloud he'd constructed with the best tools logic could supply had nothing on the reality of what it meant to understand a person on a level that transcended rational thought. And when the pieces clicked and Leon _knew_, he found an entirely new appreciation for everything the other man was.

The nature of fact was something he learned from Cloud. Leon learned from him that there was no such thing as proof. There was no such thing as an absolute that could be attained through analysis, which could supply only relatives. All it took was one counter-example to squander everything he had deciphered, only one to turn relative truths into absolute lies. The vastness of the difference between inferences and truth mocked him and awed him at the same time—the realization that he'd spent nine years completely unaware of what it meant to actually _know_ someone. And through it all, Leon was completely blindsided by one final addendum of his new reality:

He was in love.

* * *

-

Cloud had assumed it would go away. It was nothing more than the lingering whims of his 12-year old self—a leftover crush, although the swordsman would have been absolutely mortified to use the word. But weeks stretched into months, and still he found himself unable to shake his darker desires for the gunblader.

A part of him sought friendship. A part of him sought guidance and companionship, fancied that Leon could lead him back to the light they were both fighting to regain. But beneath his desire to aid and be aided lurked the carnal wants that distracted him when they were together.

He made a conscious effort to draw a line between them. Leon was unattainable, very much as he had been when he was 16. He was part of something bigger and better—not a suitable toy for a 12-year old and more than just a willing body to be claimed by the underworld's bastard son. But the more urgently he forbade himself to cross that line, the more tantalizing it became. The more he tried to obey it, the more painfully aware he became that there was nothing stopping him from taking what he wanted.

It didn't help that Leon was responsive, in his own way. He knew he was attractive, and he indulged the blond's hungry gaze. He didn't deny the advances that were unexecuted but somehow still present, too headstrong to shy away when the other challenged him with suggestion.

And Cloud was no stranger to the look of guarded but genuine affection in the older man's steel-colored eyes. It was the same way he'd once looked at Sephiroth, a thought that was enough to stay him when it struck him. The notion that he could be to someone what Sephiroth had been to him drove cold tendrils of nausea up his throat. He would never... he could never...

And yet a part of him suspected that he could. He had once been a monster, no different from the one he had slain. It was perhaps his greatest fear, that the darkness within him was not only unconquered but lying in wait. And when he metaphorically tripped and stumbled into Leon's bed, it became one of the things that kept him awake at night—wondering what he would have to do to give the brunet a wing of his own.

It scared him, how unafraid Leon was of the wing that marked his damnation—how he would kiss the leathery ridge and run his fingers along it in quiet adoration. He tried to convince the brunet that the wing was revolting, but Leon seemed unable to reject any part of him, and Cloud soon learned that this puzzling and unconditional acceptance extended past the appendage on his back. No matter what he confessed to Leon, sometimes in angry yells across empty streets, sometimes in trembling whispers, the brunet welcomed. Regardless of how despicable the crimes were that he admitted to, Leon did not judge.

Sephiroth had been out of his reach, even when he'd had him, something so far above him that he only seemed near for fleeting moments. The men he picked up in underworld bars were pathetic, terrified of him even when he submitted to them, putting him on a pedestal for reasons he couldn't understand. He was a fantasy in the flesh for them, untouchable even when they fucked him, and it sickened him. _Sephiroth_ was the one who was larger than life, not him. Sephiroth was a god, the men in the bars were parasites, and Cloud was something in between.

Leon was something he had never experienced before. There was something about him that made him so immediate that Cloud couldn't help but be drawn; and it drew him in like gravity, inevitable and inescapable and yet so natural that he couldn't imagine it any other way. Leon was so strong and yet so flawed, so beautifully imperfect, so _real_. Even in his stony gaze and the stoic line of his lips, there was something incredibly human.

Leon was intoxicating because he was _there_. For a man who hid behind a name, he had a remarkable ability to hand himself over without question. Cloud couldn't get enough of it. It blew his mind, the way that Leon truly felt like he was near. He knew that, by normal above-ground standards, Leon was a particularly inaccessible person; that only made it more amazing that there was nothing superficial in his touch. He could taste it on the other man's lips, could feel it in the hands that savored his body, could hear it in the voice that growled his name against his skin: there was no distance between them.

Cloud had been afraid, at first, that the other man would be repulsed to know _what_ he'd been sleeping with. But as time passed and it became apparent that Leon wasn't being driven away, he came to fear instead that he had trespassed upon the other in a way he had never intended.

With it came the fear that he had gotten so close that he could actually—_might_ actually—hurt Leon. He hadn't ever meant for that, hadn't so much as considered that he could mean something to someone. And for that, Cloud hated himself. He had pursued Leon in search of sexual gratification, never once considering that anything else could come of it. And in his carelessness he had given Leon—their fearless leader, his anchor against the gravitating pull of the abyss—a weakness.

It was just like him, to be so unforgivably _stupid_.

* * *

-

Leon was more than willing to indulge Cloud physically—glad that he could be of service, in a sense. He knew he had betrayed himself somewhere along the way, that the unspoken reality of what he really felt for the other man was no secret. But Leon neither expected nor demanded anything in return. He was still humbled by the simple fact that Cloud had allowed him back into his life, and it was more than he would have dared to ask for to be allowed to love him even from afar.

Despite Cloud's initial and blatant efforts to keep his distance, they had become fast friends. And all things considered, the important things came quickly. If it was surprising that he could so easily befriend a man who had recently tried to kill him, it was even more surprising that Cloud reciprocated. Being abandoned by Squall had clearly been a catalyst for a great deal of trauma in his life. Leon wouldn't have blamed Cloud if he hadn't wanted to stay on the same world as him. Those memories were old, but they were new to Cloud, who was just now exploring the pain that had festered beneath blind rage for nine years.

And it wasn't just what he'd done to Cloud. The story of those nine years was beginning to unfold, piece by piece—a story saturated with sin and horror, with lies and manipulation, with incredible hatred and an impossible love that somehow _was_. And as that story was revealed to him, Leon realized that Cloud had subconsciously linked him to many things that had very little to do with him—many of which were much more horrific than what had transpired that day nine years ago.

Leon knew from experience that dwelling on the past solved nothing, but that didn't stop him from knowing that if only he'd gotten Cloud to the airship that day, none of this would have happened. Cloud would not have faced the fall of Radiant Garden alone. He would not have seen half of the things he'd seen that day. He would not have been "rescued" by Sephiroth and mindfucked into blind devotion. All of this, if only he hadn't run away.

But he had. He had abandoned Cloud to face all of that alone, and somehow—_somehow_—the man trusted him. _Trusted_ him.

Trusted _him.

* * *

_

-

Cloud is turned away from him, facing the far wall in silence, but even without looking, Leon knows from the clench of his fists against the empty air that the younger man's jaw is set, his eyes shut tight. He feels the faint tremors, the metaphorical quaking of the blond's solid frame, before he even touches him. Cloud is unshaken beneath his gaze, sturdy as always, despite the fact that he's really, perhaps, simply so broken that there is nothing _left_ to shake.

It would be his definition of an ill-conceived defense mechanism, but Leon isn't one to talk.

Cloud is frigid beneath his touch, despite the physical warmth of his bared shoulder as he lays an ungloved hand over it in question. He can feel them there, in that quiet contact of skin on skin, the years that separate them and the unspeakable horrors that they contain. He knows, in a manner of words, what the younger man has been through. Painstakingly, Cloud has recounted the years for him, in hollow words that can never hope to achieve the weight of those moments that are etched indelibly into his brain, the deepest scars he carries. And Leon knows that even though he knows what happened, he can only imagine the damage incurred. He wasn't there. He wasn't there for him then, when it mattered most. But he can be here for him—is here for him—now.

And maybe, just maybe, that will be enough.

--

* * *

**A/N:** Another insert! I never posted this because I wasn't quite satisfied with it, but ... what the hell. It's been sitting around for EVER. I spontaneously threw in a tense-flop to emphasize the shift in that last section, but I dunno if I'll keep it. xD

BUT ANYWAY. IN MOREIMPORTANT NEWS:

**A gazillion thanks to StellarEclipse for the beta on this chapter!! ILU.  
If you somehow know who I am but don't know who she is, go read her stuff. She is incredible and writes lots of yummy CLC.**

**Also, thank you Razer Athane for reminding me that I need to update this! You are super cool~ X3  
**


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